100% Freshie Chapter 15 --PG-13

[librarian_7]

Disclaimer: The characters from Moonlight are copyrighted by CBS, and no infringement is intended.

Special note: This work takes place in the world of Moonlight, but your favorite vamps are not the main focus. Sorry about that; try to enjoy the story anyway. You might be surprised.

100% Freshie

Chapter 15

Stepping out of the cab, Danni blinked in the bright afternoon sun. She had that gritty, rumpled feel that comes from sleeping in clothes, and felt the need to tug fretfully at the hem of her cobalt blue dress. Nothing like coming home from a night out at 2 p.m. the next day, in the same clothes you left in the night before. She knew the neighbors all thought she was some kind of call girl, or maybe just a slut, and she snorted softly to herself. If they knew the truth. If they only knew.

When she woke up at Will’s place, around ten a.m., she’d found him still sitting, staring bleakly into the distance. She’d hesitated at to disturb him, but as she backed slowly out of the room, he’d spoken her name. She stopped dead in her tracks, waiting.

“Come here.” His voice was gentle, betraying nothing of his thoughts. As she came forward, he caught her hand, and led her around the arm of his chair. “Would you sit with me?”

She smiled, but noted the tired shadows around his eyes. It was very tempting, to slide into that lap, to feel the comfort of his cool embrace, and offer him wrist or throat. She knew enough now to realize that he could use it, but he didn’t seem to be asking. And as much as she wanted to feed him, she’d fed another only a few hours before. It was too soon. “Maybe I should stand.”

Will nodded, looking away and rubbing his free hand over his face. After everything she’d told him, he couldn’t honestly blame her for rejecting him. Even after all these years, it was painful for him. Serena had warned him, long ago, how hard it was to deal with mortals, that the humans carried such enormous power within them to heal or harm a vampire heart. She’d always counseled caution, distance, separation. She broken that rule to Turn him, but such follies were few on her part.

He didn’t want to let go of Danger’s hand, not yet, even though the simple fact of her flowing blood was awakening a hunger in him that would need to be slaked sooner rather than later. He inhaled, wanting, perhaps, to torment himself with the warm fragrance of her blood, but caught instead a reminder that she had been with another vampire not 10 hours before. Even if by some cosmic mischance she was still willing, he couldn’t feed from her. Not without risking harming her. There had been a time when he wouldn’t have thought twice about it. If a girl was willing, she was willing, and anything else was her problem. Somewhere along the line, he’d begun to grow a conscience, and he was finding it damned inconvenient.

“Will?” Danni’s voice called him out of his reverie. “Can I ask you something?”

He nodded dumbly. He thought he had braced himself, but the question still came as a surprise.

Danni had rehearsed this one, well, every day since Will had left, and now at the point of asking, she had no idea how to get it across to him. She took a deep breath. Straightforward was best, right? “Okay, I’ll just say it. When you left—you could have taken any of us with you. Or all of us, for that matter. Why did you take Emma along? Why did you choose her, and not Hunter, or me?”

Will closed his eyes at the question. “Damn, Danger,” he said, “you don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

Danni waited, letting the silence gain weight and momentum. She’d asked the question she needed to ask, and she knew he’d heard her. Repeating it didn’t have nearly the force of simply waiting for his response.

Finally he sighed. “All I can tell you is that at the time I thought it was for the best. I thought it was the best thing for me, and somehow I made the assumption that what was best for me would be best for all of us. Or maybe I thought that what was best for me was all I really needed to worry about.” He paused, and that painful silence filled the room again.

This time he broke it with movement, laying his bright head against her hip, feeling the warmth of her skin against his cool forehead through the slick fabric of her dress. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

Dannie stroked the silky hair back from his forehead. That answer was no answer, but obviously, it was all she was going to get for now. She’d noticed that his regret hadn’t really seemed to be in the nature of asking for forgiveness. Still, from what she’d learned, it was more than most vamps would have said. As a species, they seemed markedly disinterested in redemption. She wasn’t sure she had the redemption he needed, anyway. But she did have one thing she could offer him. “Will,” she said softly, “aren’t you hungry?”

Without lifting his head, he turned the wrist he still held to look at the fresh wounds there, those two neat punctures in her pale skin. “It’s too soon.”
“It’s fine. It’s all right.”

He wondered if she knew how tempting her offer was, how painful it was to resist. “Danger, you fed a vamp last night. You need time to recover.”

Danni laughed softly. “He didn’t drink much, Will. I—I got this phone call, and I stopped him.”

“You stopped him? In the middle of--?”

“Yeah.”

Will shook his head, with a gentle snort. “That explains a lot,” he said. After a long pause, he said, “Are you sure it’s all right?”

“I’m not stupid about these things,” she replied. “Not anymore.”

She shifted, moving to perch on the arm of his chair without breaking any of the contact between them, even as he drew in her scent, letting the change sweep over him, letting his beast carefully out of its cage. “I’ve missed your taste, Danger,” he said in a low, growling tone just before he set his teeth into her skin, and just before the tears began to slide down her face.

Now, Danni thought as she walked into her apartment building, all she really wanted was about a quart of orange juice and a nice long bath, followed by a nap. She still had hopes for the orange juice, but the other two seemed iffy.

Sure enough, as soon as she walked in, Emma was waiting to pounce on her with hugs and gushing greetings, but Danni heard a false note in all of it. The Emma she’d thought she knew, that warm, solid, open young woman, had gotten lost along the way, replaced by a paler, gaunter person whose eyes and mouth seemed to be guarded, haunted by experience and older than her years. Danni had been on the verge of prompting her for the whole story of her months alone with Will, but something in Emma’s manner sent a cold knot into Danni’s stomach and stilled her questions before they were asked.

Danni had no notion, no realization that Emma’s eyes also found a stranger where she had expected a friend. Where she had expected to find the same straightforward, trusting girl she had last seen, she saw a woman who had gained a veneer of sophistication but lost her innocence. Emma knew she was not a particularly introspective person, but she found herself wondering, not for the first time, what besides blood the vampires took from them. The intangibles, the drain of emotions, time, and youth took perhaps a higher toll than any purely physical damage inflicted.

So after the initial gush of greetings, the hugs and kisses that began heartfelt and quickly turned awkward, Danni sat quietly and listened while Emma filled the apartment with brittle chatter. She was talking faster than she used to, Danni thought, and trying to stop any questions that might go past the surface of where they’d been and the empty pursuits Emma had used to fill her time. Danni realized with a little shock that she’d changed, herself, become content to listen and absorb what was going on around her. She didn’t let the pleasant smile slip, but she reflected that just maybe she’d learned a thing or two, hanging out with the vamps, besides the most graceful way to offer up her wrist. Whether it was good or not was another question, but changes had been made.

Mostly, Danni noticed that Emma never once asked about Hunter, never expressed surprise at her absence. They had been close, they had shared a thousand jokes, had experienced things together that not one person in a million had seen. And now it was as though Hunter had never existed, never graced this apartment with her presence. Maybe it was a part of the unwritten freshie code—the code that helped them survive in the midst of the predators they worshipped. When a freshie disappeared, when she abruptly vanished from sight, you didn’t ask too many questions, because some of the alternatives were too dire to contemplate, and they might apply all too soon to you. If you thought about it at all, you assumed that she’d hopped a plane back to Indiana—or Texas, she thought wryly—and was living happily ever after in a world where the only vampires were in romance novels or television shows.

Danni thought she’d like that, someday. To sit and read one of those absurd romances and remember, as she used to imagine, the glory of a vampire’s bite. Someday. She glanced down at the wounds on her arm, smiling to herself. Lost in thought, she didn’t see Emma moving, until the other woman had seized her wrist, turning it to get a better view. The grip was so familiar, Danni didn’t think to resist it. In her world, when someone grabbed you in that fashion, you submitted, and you prepared yourself for the feeding.

Emma’s mouth hardened to a single line as she took in the multiple fading scars on Danni’s wrist. She looked up, and saw as many more on the girl’s throat. “Well,” she said, “Looks like you haven’t been lonely.”

At that, Danni snatched her hand away. “What do you care?” she said hotly. “You, off on your little tour with Will. Don’t tell me you think he expected me to sit at home and pine away for him?”

To Danni’s surprise, Emma reacted by sitting back and covering her face with both hands. After a few seconds, she pulled her hands down far enough that her large, dark eyes showed over the ends of her fingers. “Yeah,” she said, “about that.” Her voice broke. “I know you’re jealous that he took me, Danger. In your place, I’d feel the same way. But—but—“ she paused, looking away. Her hands fell back in her lap, and Danni saw her bit her lower lip. Then she looked Danni straight in the eye, and said, “You want to know what he told me about that? You really want to know? He said that he wanted to travel light, and he didn’t want any baggage along that he’d hesitate to abandon.”

[francis]

Serena had warned him, long ago, how hard it was to deal with mortals, that the humans carried such enormous power within them to heal or harm a vampire heart.

Serena was a wise sire. Mostly we only hear about vamps being so powerful and strong, but they fall for human love so easily.

Somewhere along the line, he’d begun to grow a conscience, and he was finding it damned inconvenient.

Another vampire who isn’t scary enough for his own good… and him feeding on Danni after all of this time made me melancholy.
And then Emma, expecting a friend and getting a stranger. I am concerned too, that Emma doesn’t ask about Hunter. But then again, Emma has been hurt too. Why did Will have to say this hurtful thing to Emma?